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Is Trump already the worst president ever?: Hepburn

Transition period shows Trump won’t change once he’s in the White House

President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Chairman's Global Dinner, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in on Tuesday in Washington, DC. The invitation only black-tie event offered an opportunity for Trump to introduce himself and members of his cabinet to foreign diplomats. (GETTY IMAGES)

Donald Trump won’t be sworn in as the 45th U.S. president until noon on Friday, but signs already abound that he’s in the running to be declared the worst American leader ever.

Since winning the election on Nov. 8, Trump has shown he’s the same man as always: unpredictable, volatile, thin-skinned, nasty, petty, lacking filters, openly critical of his country’s own intelligence agencies and long-standing foreign allies while sidling up to historic enemies.

It’s a recipe for disaster for a sitting president.

Indeed, nearly 60 per cent of Americans already believe their president-elect will be between “average” and “worse” compared to former presidents, with a whopping 31 per cent saying Trump will be among the worst, according to a Fox News poll released this week.

At the same time, polls indicate Trump will be the least popular new president in decades. And a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found huge numbers of Americans disapprove of how Trump has handled his transition to the White House.

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But is it fair to say, even before his inauguration, that Trump may be the worst ever?

For Canadians, as well as the rest of the world, this is a critical issue because Trump’s actions, from trade to government regulations, will affect all of us. A case in point is the Bank of Canada’s announcement Wednesday that it will keep interest rates unchanged, partly due to uncertainties surrounding the Trump presidency.

If the transition phase between the election and the swearing-in ceremony is any indication of how a Trump presidency will operate, the answer is obvious.

For starters, Trump has shown little respect for the office and the institution he is about to assume. Unlike any Republican or Democratic president before him, Trump may not even move full-time to the White House. His wife Melania and youngest son Baron will continue to live for now at the Trump Tower in New York.

Also, he has boycotted daily security briefings, suggested he will kick the press corps out of their White House offices, said he won’t even start to work until Monday because he doesn’t want to interfere with inaugural parties this weekend and will forgo many of the unofficial duties of the job, such as informal meet-and-greet sessions with voters.

The presidency is not a job that can be treated as a Monday-to-Friday post. It is a relentless position that requires tremendous stamina and perseverance.

Trump’s presidency is also shaping up as one where ethics takes a back seat. The best, or worst, example is his refusal to sell his businesses or put them in a blind trust. Instead, he handed them over to his sons, who are supposed to run them without any input from dad.

Also, Americans are still waiting for Trump to release his tax returns, something every president in the past 40 years has done well before they took office. What is he hiding?

On policy, Trump seems to be making much of it up on the go, or rather on Twitter. He’s threatened auto manufacturers, drug companies and other firms on the social media outlet, raised fears abroad with his tweets about the one-China policy, Mexico and others without any detailed explanations or discussion.

Last week he called NATO obsolete and said he places as much trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin as he does in German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who he severely criticized for her open-door immigration policy.

Just as serious, he has shocked global financial markets by breaking with decades of bipartisan tradition by talking about the level of the U.S. dollar, a role generally left to the U.S. Treasury. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that he favours a weaker dollar, which caused the dollar to plunge within minutes of his comment appearing.

The list goes on, including his continuing open feud with U.S. intelligence agencies, his long-forgotten promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington of political hacks and lobbyists only to appoint a bunch of his pals and super-rich business executives to key posts and his attacks on mainstream media.

Obviously, every new president sparks uncertainty as they first step into the job. And every president comes with new policies and priorities. But as has been said many times, Trump was like no presidential candidate the U.S. has ever seen, and he will be like no president they’ve ever experienced.

Trump could surprise, primarily because expectations are so low for him. But to date he’s done nothing to erase the view that he will likely be condemned to history as the worst president ever.

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